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Baseball Primer Newsblog— The Best News Links from the Baseball Newsstand
Monday, August 31, 2009
Hopefully it’s not Goose Agoos or Ntsoelengoe!
Jeff Passan wrote an article last week talking about poor sabermetric comparisons for Ichiro Suzuki. He also talked about how Ichiro could reach 4,000 MLB hits by playing well into his mid-forties. In his criticism of sabermetric comparisons (Baseball-Reference’s top match is Ralph Garr, and PECOTA’s is Lance Johnson), he’s quick to dismiss (or he never actually researched) statistics that are extremely similar. Instead of Ichiro being “beyond the comprehension of computers,” as he puts it, instead Passan doesn’t take a deep enough look into the sabermetrics to understand the comparisons.
Regarding Passan’s criticism of PECOTA, there are several factors to consider. First, there has never been a case like Ichiro before; of course PECOTA has trouble understanding an elite hitter who didn’t start playing major league ball until he was 27. PECOTA uses minor league numbers as well as major league numbers to make player comparisons, but Ichiro didn’t play in the minors, removing one of the factors that can be used to create more accurate comparisons.
Conclusion
I respect Ichiro’s amazing hitting ability. I don’t think PECOTA is perfect. I know that players defy the odds and predictions (sabermetric or otherwise) and do great things. If one wants to freely admit to subjective analysis and use “adjectives and onomatopoeia” instead of “a cold and callous spreadsheet,” that’s fine. But the criticism of stats and sabermetrics, which are objective instruments of measurement, needs to be objective in turn. Passan looked at surface statistics like batting average, and he dipped his toe in the shallow end of sabermetric analysis by referencing OPS (which is mostly mainstream now), but he failed to really dive into why Baseball-Reference and PECOTA compared Ichiro to Ralph Garr and Lance Johnson, respectively. All three hitters excelled at making a lot of contact, beating out close plays, and stealing bases. I’ll be the first to say that Ichiro does most of these things better than the other two, but that doesn’t mean that their style of baseball isn’t very similar, as the sabermetrics show.
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1. CFiJ Posted: August 31, 2009 at 02:48 PM (#3309666)Ichiro may be closer to Cobb than Garr or Johnson, but he's still not actually close. In terms of players, the one who always comes to mind for an Ichiro comp is Sam Rice - corner outfielder, liked to run the bases (although at a much worse percentage than Ichiro), hit for a high average and, despite not starting in MLB until his late 20s, made a serious run at 3000 hits.
agree, and Dan did list Sam Rice in the comment section. I was wondering how well Nap Lajoie compares, he seems to have the closest raw numbers to Ichiro at ages 33-35. Of course era adjustments ruin any true comparison and Ichiro still has the stolen base speed over him.
It's enough of a strain to read the excerpt. There's no way I have the energy to read both the articles AND the comments.
1750+ PAs, .325+ Avg
less than .450 SLG, less than .400 OBP, Sb 75+
Ichiro!
That's it.
All baseball players, 1901-2009, ages 33-35
1500+ PAs, .300+ Avg
less than .475 SLG, less than .425 OBP, Sb 60+
Cnt Player BA SB SLG OBP PA From To Ages+----+-----------------+-----+----+-----+-----+-----+----+----+-----+
1 Ichiro Suzuki .338 104 .425 .381 2027 2007 2009 33-35
2 Sam Rice .334 70 .445 .384 2092 1923 1925 33-35
3 Max Carey .315 146 .452 .390 2002 1923 1925 33-35
4 Paul Molitor .313 68 .473 .382 1907 1990 1992 33-35
5 Sam Crawford .310 62 .468 .375 2039 1913 1915 33-35
6 Brett Butler .304 130 .372 .403 2138 1990 1992 33-35
7 Lou Brock .304 251 .391 .363 2103 1972 1974 33-35
8 Barry Larkin .303 70 .462 .402 1589 1997 1999 33-35
How about that, Sam Rice...
Ichiro strikes me as a Willie Keeler type, with an insane number of singles. Sam Rice, absolutely, yes. Doc Cramer would be the poor man's version.
Remember that Cobb played mostly in the Deadball Era. He averaged 39 doubles per 162 games, reaching 30 doubles in 15 seasons, and 40 four times. In sharp contrast, Ichiro! has reached 30 doubles precisely once, though he might get there again this year. Even if you limit Cobb to his age 27-35 seasons to match Ichiro!, it's six 30-double seasons, two of them over 40.
In a low-homer era, Cobb averaged 61 EBH per 162 games, far more than Ichiro!'s 43 per 162. His career SLG of .512 dwarfs Ichiro!'s anemic .433. And when you start adjusting for era, well, ... Ichiro!'s best OPS+ was 130, in his 262-hit 2004 season. Ty Cobb failed to exceed the very best OPS+ achieved by Ichiro! in only three of his 24 seasons -- 1905 (18-year-old rookie, .240/.288/.300 in 41 games, 86 OPS+), 1924 (age 37, .338/.418/.450, 125 OPS+ as the rest of the game started belting homers), and 1928 (final season at age 41, .323/.389/.431, 112 OPS+).
It seems to me that Garr is a very good comp for Ichiro!, as a guy whose entire offensive value is in his empty batting average, though of course Ichiro! is a significantly better basestealer and fielder than The Roadrunner. As is Sam Rice a decent comparison, as a late-to-arrive MLBer. Lance Johnson not so much.
Anyway, comps for what purpose? Guys with career numbers similar to Ichiro through age 35 ... just to find them? OK, sure, there aren't gonna be any of those except Rice and to an extent Garr and maybe a couple others.
Guys over the last 60 years who, from ages 33-35, had at least 1200 PA, BA>=300, ISO<=120 ... there are 10 of those guys. Including, knock me over with a feather ... Darryl Hamilton! 308/389/406 in 1350 PA. Why do I remember him as being Tom Goodwin-esque? OK, part of it is that he was in Colorado for over half of that so he has Coors inflation.
anyway, also on the list are Carew and Rose. They both aged well although Ichiro will have to last longer than Carew to make 3,000 hits. Brett Butler's on that list too -- not a bad comp. Also good comps in my opinion are Gwynn (Gwynn really boosted his power in his 30s which is why he didn't make the comp list) and maybe Lofton (he was a pretty good comp through 30-31 or so but he lost a good chunk of BA while adding power in his 30s).
Still, even here, Ichiro is rather unique if you want to drill down further. Rose, Butler and (to a lesser extent) Carew all walked more than Ichiro while Gwynn and Lofton added power in their 30s. In BA, Ichiro beats all these guys handily except Gwynn (372!! from ages 33-35). All of them aged rather well though and, given his past durability and current speed, there's certainly no reason to expect Ichiro to age worse than they did and it's hard to see his BA falling apart rapidly enough to destroy his value. Given that (and his popularity), he's an awfully good bet to play at least another 5 full years which will have him close enough to 3000 (and maybe over it) that he'll come back at age 41.
Each spent some time with the Rangers during the late 90s – Hamilton had one of his worst years here, and Goodwin one of his best, and they were pretty similar years. So they are not entirely distinct in my mind, either ...
So Brock is another reason similar sort of hitter (and baserunner) to Ichiro who lasted rather well. Ichiro is better than Brock overall (due to better BA and better defense) and there's no reason to expect him to age worse. To reach 3000, Ichiro will have to be more durable and effective than Brock going forward but the latter is almost guaranteed. With Brock's playing, Ichiro would probably be around 2750 hits through age 40 ... which puts him right on the cusp of whether it's worth bringing him back for 2 years to break 3000.
Garr is a decent comp in that he's a similar type of hitter, but other than that not so good.
He had seasons that looked like Ichiro seasons:
.343/.372/.441 in 1971, .325/.359/.430 in 1972, .353/.383/.503 in 1974,
but he also logged years like 1973: .299/.323/.415; 1975: .278/.327/.384; and 1978: .275/.314/ .377
The later year he was 32 and toasty.
Ichiro's "worst"was .310/.361/.386, and he's at 333/.378/.433 for his career.
Garr's 1974 was probably better than any Ichiro season, but that was basically a fluke.
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